Kate Bush’s first concert in 35 years: setlist + photos

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This evening, Kate Bush took the stage at London’s Eventim Apollo for her first live concert in 35 years. Dubbed “Before the Dawn”, the performance marked the beginning of Bush’s 22-date residency at the Apollo, which runs through early October.

According to the Guardian, the concert lasted nearly two hours and consisted of two separate suites. Bush began with some of her biggest hits — including “Hounds of Love”, “Running Up That Hill”, and “Joanni” — before transitioning into a full performance of “The Ninth Wave” from her 1985 LP, Hounds of Love. After a brief intermission, she performed “Sky of Honey”, the second half of her 2005 LP, Aerial, before ending with “Among Angels” and “Cloudbusting”.

As is to be expected, the visual component of the concert was apparently also quite impressive, involving costumes and elaborate backdrops.

According to Tim Jonze of the Guardian:

She created sea scenes through using bits of cloth, she was on video in a life jacket, there was one bit where a lounge was wheeled on stage, and you got to watch a conversation between her husband [Danny McIntosh] and son [Bertie] who are watching Liverpool v Chelsea on the TV. She disappears behind them as if she is haunting them. There’s a sea horse skeleton walking around the stage.”

Meanwhile, The Mirror wrote:

Bush’s long time away from the stage has evidently left her determined to add something more than song performance to the live experience. A lighting rig amplified with the sounds of helicopter rotor blades soars over the audience belching more smoke, Bush’s drowned character appears in a drawing room theatrical scene as she and actors play out mimed exchanges harking back to her earliest dramatic roots. But at the heart of the artful contrivance and outlandish effects the assertion of the simple verities of love longing, domesticity and family life were given full reign. There was undoubtedly only one artist who would have had the bloody mindedness, nerve and beautifully skewed imagination to pull it off.”